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California Nurses Put the Brakes on Training Non-Medical School Staff

Linda von Wartburg

Sep 4, 2007

Recently, as the result of the settlement of a 2005 lawsuit filed by parents and the ADA, California schools were told that they must have staff available, trained but not necessarily licensed, to help diabetic students with their shots, monitoring, and other needs.

The settlement was intended to address California's very low nurse-to-student ratio, the result of which is that many diabetic students receive no care at all during school.

Now, however, it looks like a fix may be a long time coming. The California School Nurses Organization has thrown a wrench into the works by advising school nurses to seek legal guidance before training non-medical staff to provide diabetes-related care. The nurses insist that because insulin mistakes can be fatal, only licensed personnel should administer insulin.

They are concerned, they say, about losing their licenses if they train unlicensed school staffers to administer insulin. And they report that non-medical staff, who have the same concerns, are equally reluctant to be trained.

Source: Press-Enterprise.com

All California Schools Have To Help Kids With Diabetes

Sep 2, 2007

Categories: Diabetes, Diabetes, Government & Policy, Insulin, Kids & Teens, Type 1 Issues

Comments

Posted by Anonymous on 24 November 2007

Bottom line is that these children are protected by federal law, and by not taking care of their needs while at school this is violating their rights to an equal opportunity for education. I have a nine year old diabetic child, and I to now work on campus, as a volunteer, but most parents are not fortunate enough to be able to do that. It is not o.k. to assume that because they have a diabetic child they need to make the sacrifice and be there. We make sacrifices every day, I have not slept in two years through the night, and I am o.k. with that. What is not o.k. is for my child to be in danger because the nurse's don't want to give some responsibility to perfectly capable untrained staff to help a child. One of my favorite teachers said it best when she said "We don't expect or sign up to get a classroom full of perfect children. Anybody that expects that is naive or teaching for the wrong reason"

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